Entities often generate and use data that is important in some way to their operations. This data can include, for example, business data, financial data, and personnel data. If this data were lost or compromised, the entity may realize significant adverse financial and other consequences. Accordingly, many entities have chosen to back up critical data so that in the event of a natural disaster, unauthorized access, or other events, the entity can recover any data that was compromised or lost.
Often, the backed up data is stored in a ‘read only’ format. However, some applications require not only read access to the backed up data, but also write access to the backed up data, that is, such applications require read-write access. Since the data is stored in a ‘read only’ format however, such applications are unable to perform the necessary write operations to that data.
In light of the foregoing, it would be useful to be able to provide read-write access to ‘read only’ data, such as backed up data for example, in such a way that the necessary read and write operations can be performed without modifying or compromising the ‘read only’ data in any material way. As well, it would be useful to be able to perform defragmentation of data substantially contemporaneously with the writing of the data so as to form contiguous, consolidated data blocks.